Abstract

The migration of running process instances allows for a dynamic distribution of individual business processes at runtime. However, a widely-used standardized process description language and an agreed format for the exchange of process instance data are vital for the applicability of such concept. The newly evolved standard of the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN 2.0) is currently gaining acceptance in many organizations and is supported by a growing number of process engines. In order to leverage BPMN for the dynamic distribution of business processes, this paper presents an analysis on the migratability of running BPMN process instances. The results include a mapping of BPMN 2.0 control flow elements to an existing migration model and a novel migration concept for process instances which contain BPMN-specific elements such as events, pools and user tasks. In addition, the effort for extending a BPMN process engine is evaluated by a prototype implementation based on the open source Activiti process engine.